We have been working on qualitative data analysis including coding student letters as a team. Though these times of isolation have brought many changes in our lives, I believe it has allowed for us to grow as a team as we continue to work together virtually. It has been a gratifying experience to get to read over and code some of the letters students wrote as part of their unit for physics. The physics team put a lot of thought in creating a unit that teaches science in a way students can find meaningful. The unit asks students to design a safe and efficient car for a loved one and has students write a letter to that loved one explaining their reasoning behind those features. In their letters, students demonstrated deep thinking and made connections between the physics content taught in class and their personal lives. For example, one student wrote “These features are all meant to either prevent you from getting into a collision, or in the event of a collision, increase the time of a collision, which would decrease the force felt by you and the babies,” demonstrating knowledge about physics content and attributing it to the safety of their sister, and their nieces and nephews. It was very enlightening to see how students took something they cared about and used that to understand a much larger scientific concept and then applied it to their everyday lives and those of others. In the following example, Newton’s Laws of Motions allowed this student to understand the importance of seat belts in ensuring their brother’s safety, “The most important aspect of the car is the good seat belts because seat belts actually decrease the risk of injury up to 59% because it helps fight against Newton’s 1st Law. Newton’s 1st Law states that an object will remain at rest or in uniform motion in a straight line unless acted upon by an external force." It was almost as if I was able to get a glimpse of each student’s thought process through these letters! Continue reading below for an example letter that we all wanted to highlight. isabel sotoUndergraduate Research Assistant
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